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I must say that when I first went to the Swagbucks website, I was a little confused and somewhat skeptical. It mentioned things like being a “premier rewards site” and a leading online search engine. But if they were a search engine, then how does one generate the rewards from? And why have I never heard of them? Well, it turns out that Swagbucks is indeed pretty legit.

In a nutshell, Swagbucks is a search engine just like Google or Ask, but you can get rewards points just for searching the web. And actually, the site is sponsored by Google and Ask!

Swagbucks is overall a pretty cool site. You can simply install their toolbar on your computer right next to your Google toolbar, and just do your Internet searches from there. The results are close to the same. If you’re doing Internet searches for research purposes or work purposes, I’d recommend going with Google because their search results are superior to Swagbucks and many other search engines as well. But if you’re looking for anything else, Swagbucks is a great option for getting quality search results while gaining rewards points. Not only can you get rewards for searching the Web, but their site also offers a whole host of other options for building up your Swag Bucks.

How It Works

It’s amazingly simple. You just sign up and you can either go to their website each time you want to gain points for surfing the web, or you can just download the Swagbucks toolbar and do your searches from there.

Then each time you do a search using the Swagbucks search engine, you gain Swag Bucks which are good towards a wide variety of prizes, including everything from GPS systems to memorabilia to gift cards to actual cash via PayPal.

Other Ways To Gain Points

However, your ability to gain points does not end with merely search queries. There are a ton of other ways to save and earn Swag Bucks:

1. Special Offers You can earn points by signing up for special offers or registering as a user with some websites. They also have a daily NOSO (No Obligation Special Offer) that can gain you points. This is a special offer that involves no cost and no obligation to you.

2. Surveys You can also earn Swagbucks by filling out surveys through their site. You’ll have to consider the time involved here when debating whether online surveys are worth it or not.

3. Shop They also have a shopping section where you can earn one Swag Buck for every dollar that you spend there. At first, I didn’t expect to see “big” retailers there, but I was able to find quite a few well-known names. Walmart and Macy’s are there as well as lots of others.

4. Trade-In Program They also have a very unique program where you can actually trade in your old cell phone or your old video game system for Swag Bucks. In fact, I have a few old cell phones that I plan on sending to them when I get around to it. I’ll at least get something for them in return!

5. Polls They also have daily polls where you can gain Swag Bucks. Simply answer a few questions and you get the bucks!

6. Invite Friends And of course, you can also increase your Swagbucks by inviting your friends to join. You can get up to 1,000 points per referral.

Check It Out, But Balance Your Time

Swagbucks is certainly worth checking out, but the site could become a little addicting. If you’re going to use it solely for your search engine queries, I’m all for that. After all, we all use search engines anyways, so why not use a search engine that rewards us with free money and prizes? In this regard, using Swagbucks wouldn’t take up any extra time at all.

But if you end up sitting on the site filling out surveys, filling out the daily polls, completing special offers, and inviting your friends, your time could be easily sucked away every day. That’s not to say that it’s still not worth it, but you need to seriously consider your time and weight the benefits of the site against the amount of time you’re spending on it.

This is by no means a criticism of the site; this is simply a word to the wise. I can envision many people going to the site, checking out all of the things that Swagbucks has to offer, and then looking up at the clock to find that three hours have passed by. In some ways, this has the potential to be like a Facebook time warp. Just be conscious of the time you’re spending on a site like Swagbucks!

Final Word

I have given you the basics to Swagbucks, but you really just need to check it out to get a full understanding of the site and see if it fits your needs.

My personal take in a nutshell? If someone is going to allow me to generate real prizes and money by doing what I normally do every day of the week, then absolutely I’ll use the product. The search engine is good enough that it’s worth me moving my searches over there. And when I have some free time, I’ll also take advantage of their other ways to earn additional Swag Bucks like their special offers and polls.

During the writing of this review, I installed the Swagbucks toolbar on my computer at home. At the completion of this review, I had already gained 41 Swag Bucks! Now, I’ve only got 709 to go before I can get a $5 Amazon gift card!

David started his own personal finance blog, YourFinances101, in June of 2009 and published his first book on ways to save more and spend less called "Don't Be A Mule..." Since then he has been a regular contributor for Money Crashers. He lives just outside Atlanta, GA and most all of his free time is taken up by his amazing three year old son, Nicholas.

Comments Disclosure: The below responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

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